I Dig (not Digg) Diigo (not Digg-o) I think I finally found the Web 2.0 social tool I love. It has captured my heart. It's put a spring in my cerebral step. Its made my life easier because it is sooooo easy to use and so many people who I've invited to this particular dance have come. This is a dance that has a bit of hip hop, a little paso doble, a bit of the ballroom and some jazz. This is easily the best social bookmarking and research tool that I've run across on the web and given that I'm in a geeked out frenzy most of the time trying out zillions of tools that's saying something big time. Most of them are tried, not bought if they cost, and discarded within about 2 days which is my ADD-tested and approved patience limit.

That would be Diigo. Spelling D-i-i-g-o. Two eyes? Two 'i's"? Whatever. Spell it right and then go get it. Diigo is one of the few Web 2.0 tools that I find both useful and utterly cool. It actually has value and purpose, because it best represents social bookmarking - which has value and purpose. Lots of it to someone who lives on research -feasts on knowledge and spits out judgments which may be questionable at times (many times) but at least are raising information-soaked questions, not judgments devoid of content.

Diigo is fantastic social bookmarking and proto-blogging tool, marrying the best of del.icio.us, the leading bookmarking site, and Google Notebook, a recently upgraded and highly flexible tool for interacting with and reviewing your websurfing experience. I didn't spend much time with Google Notebook once I discovered it by way of comparing del.icio.us with Google Bookmarks, but I played with it enough to notice a lot of excellent features that del.icio.us did not have, including the ability to automatically associate bookmarks with a current project, flexible blog-like layout for groups of bookmarks, and collaboration features. As I moved bookmarks into Google Notebook, I started to realize I would be missing out on some advantages of del.icio.us, such as strong interconnectivity through tagging and an exceedingly simple and crisp interface. Enter Diigo, which retains del.icio.us's advantages while sprucing it up with notetaking, tagging flexibility, and collaborative features that rival Google Notebook and then some. I compare these three approaches to bookmarking on four fronts: tagging, blogging, collaboration, and "other stuff".

Tagging: When I'm surfing, I almost never want to slow down to tag or detail the links I'm saving. I'm either just browsing, and I just want the page to be saved in some repository of "cool" somewhere I might be able to check it out later, OR I want to save the page and others to come back to for some project I'm working on. Although its actual tagging features (labelling) are limited, Google Reader was cool because it would automatically save links to the notebook I was currently working on, which seemed easier than having to tag the page every time I save for del.icio.us. Diigo isn't quite this easy, but it does provide the option of setting default tags so I can cruise through surfing without pause. It also allows you to change tags for multiple bookmarks at once, a feature that has been delayed in del.icio.us during the extended wait for version 2.0. Winner: Diigo

Blogging: Sometimes, I don't want to put a whole lot of thought into consolidating my links into one coherent group. In this regard, all three services provide suitable options for tossing together semi-coherent groups of links on independent webpages for others to see. Google Reader does a good job of making scraps from around the internet look palatable; see this example about ultralight backpacking gear, but it does not offer the same level of interconnectivity that del.icio.us or Diigo provide. A similar example from del.icio.us shows it's limitations: the links cannot be groups under one note or be put into any order other than alphabetical or chronological, and pictures and other non-bookmark material cannot be added. Diigo does not have any of these limitations: its lists can be ordered as you please and divided into sections, and they are built independently of the tags, so you can draw bookmarks from anywhere into the page, as you can see in this example. The option that makes Diigo stand out is its ability to transcend the status of "proto-blog" by easily exporting links to the blog of the user's choice. By simply selecting links and clicking "Send to Blog >>", a skeletal blog entry is started in Diigo which can be fleshed out and published on the spot. Winner: Diigo

Diigo = critical literacy tool. Use for reflective writing. When searching a topic, use Diigo instead of Google to provide students with previewed, reviewed sites.

Classroom idea: set up a “tag” dictionary - it’s one of the options available when you create Diigo groups. Makes for easy evaluation: search a tag and then you’ll see which students have annotated the site. Concept of tagging vs. concept of list - You can switch list into slideshow presentation of the websites you have chosen from Diigo. The pages are “live,” not just images.

Alice Mercer and Jennifer Dorman are leading this hands-on Diigo session.

Diigo is better than all the others. I dont know how to explain it, but it just does more. You can highlight, comment, share, twitter, etc. It has a great tool bar, too. Mostly, I hate add on tool bars, but this one is actually easy to use.

TOP TEN WAYS TO SOURCING / RECRUITING - FREELY 1) DiigoStop adding your favorite links to your browsers.. thats soooo archaic. From the words of my friend Michael Marlatt " With the massive amount of information available or for surfing the web, sourcing for resumes or conducting competitive intelligence, the question is: How do you capture all this wonderful data, create online sticky-notes (reminders), keep it all organized, easily retrievable, simultaneously share (real-time) content with peers or an entire community, and oh by the way do this without your personal computer from anywhere in the world? One answer: Diigo. By accessing ANY available computer, Diigo can offer its users all this functionality and much more. Yeah, I suppose someone out there could quickly argue that there are easily hundreds of other book-marking sites, online clipping services, etc. that offer similar functionality-right? That’s true to some extent; however, you will not find one that currently offers the full suite of solutions and rich functionality that Diigo offers and is still (free).  Or, you might say, there's always book-marking favorites in your browser (old-school) and creating "bookmarklets" so why use Diigo? Hey, let’s be honest, setting up bookmarklets are helpful but the on-going filing and maintenance can be exhaustive especially if you have 100's (if not 1000's) of favorite sites stored in your browser.Diigo will simply your web surfing, data collection, content management, and group-collaboration experience in a way that no other social bookmarking application can right now. " I need not say anymore.

 about effectiveness of linkedin as a recruiting tool especially after using Linkedin recruiter but its still a great tool for networking, branding (your self /your co)One of the foremost thing you could do would be to get -)Get connected to super connectorsMyLink500.com and TopLinked.com have names & links t

Turning bookmarks and feeds into interactive slideshowsTeaching with technology does not allow you to relax or stay idle. New tools appear, I think, every minute! I was fascinated by the new tool - WebSlides and Diigo, that turn bookmarks and feeds into interactive slideshows. See it for yourself and enjoy using Diigo and WebSlide!

Today I discovered Diigo. Diigo is a bookmarking tool like del.icio.us, only, in my opinion it is vastly superior. Instead of just bookmarking, you can select a chunk of text in the page, and attach a sticky note to it. When you return to that page later on, there’s your sticky note waiting for you. Hugely useful for doing research. Yes they’re in direct competition with del.icio.us, but they’re also smart enough not to make you completely ditch del.icio.us: you can easily set up your Diigo account so that any bookmark you save to Diigo will be cross-posted to your del.icio.us account. Check out my Diigo profile if you’re interested. Oh, and this blog entry was written from within Diigo.